The embodiments described herein are related to a printed circuit board with a modular application-specification connection.
Printed circuit boards (PCB) and peripheral devices typically conform to standards specified by industry. These standards define PCB dimensions, as well as types of connector and locations of connectors with respect to the PCB. For example, VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA) has defined a standard for modular circuit packaging commonly known as the “Versa Module Europa” (VME), a flexible environment supporting a variety of computing intensive tasks, and has become a rather popular protocol in the computer industry. VME incorporates a number of design standards such as IEEE standard 1101.1, IEEE standard 1101.2, VITA20, ANSI/VITA1, VITA1.1 (VME64X) and IEEE standard P1386.
Standard connector types for a VME board 102 include a first connector “P1” at a location 104 and a second connector “P2” at a location 106, respectively, as shown in FIG. 1. Another standard “VITA 31” defines a use of a third connector “P0” located between first connector “P1” and second connector “P2”. The P0 connecter is configured to route serial fabric signals, such as Ethernet signals, to a “VITA 31” backplane.
A standard “VITA 41” defines a use of a P0 connector and a keying pin in a same general area on the VME board 102 as the VITA 31 P0 connector. The VITA 41 P0 connector performs similar functions as the VITA 31 P0 connector, however, the VITA 41 is a significantly different type of connector meant to support higher-speed fabrics.
PCBs designed for VITA 31 P0 connector may not plug physically into many standard VME backplanes due to interference between the VITA 31 P0 connector and mechanical structures in a VME backplane. Further, a VITA 41 P0 connector also presents compatibility problems with VME backplanes. In addition, a VITA 41 P0 connector cannot be used in a VITA 31 backplane and, likewise, a VITA 31 P0 connector may not be used in a VITA 41 backplane.
As a result, PCB vendors offer three different ordering options. A PCB without a P0 connector, a PCB with a VITA 31 P0 connector, and a PCB with a VITA 41 P0 connector. Support of extra ordering options for excluding a P0 connector or including a particular P0 connector adds cost to building PCBs as a specific PCB must be designed for each scenario and, thus, adds unnecessary costs of development of several different types of PCBs.